Human Values in Education

Schmidt Number: S-5848

On-line since: 15th May, 2012

LECTURE VIII

Arnheim, 24th July, 1924.

You
will have seen that in anthroposophical education great value
is laid on what lies in the consciousness of the teacher; there
must live in his consciousness a knowledge of man that is
whole, that is complete in itself. Now, as various
examples have already shown you, the conception of the world
which is usual today is ill-adapted to penetrating deeply into
the human being. The following explanation will make my meaning
clear. In studying man, we have to distinguish between his
constituent parts: firstly his physical body, his physical
organisation, then the finer ether or life-body which contains
the formative forces, the forces which live in growth and in
the processes of nourishment, and which, in the early years of
childhood, are transmuted into the forces of memory. Then we
have to add everything that the plant does not yet possess,
although it, too, has growth and nourishment, and even to some
extent lives in memory, in so far as it always retains and
repeats its form. The next member of his being man has in
common with the animal; it is the sentient body, the astral
body, the bearer of sensation. Added to this we have the
ego-organisation. These four members we have to distinguish
from one another, and in so far as we do this we shall gain a
true insight into the being of man and into human
evolution.

To
begin with man receives his first physical body, if I
may so express myself, out of the forces of heredity. This is
prepared for him by his father and mother. In the course of the
first 7 years of life this physical body is cast off, but
during this time it serves as a model from which the etheric
body can build up the second body. Today people make the things
confronting them so frightfully simple. If a ten-year-old child
has a nose like his father's they say it is inherited. But it
is not so simple as this, for as a matter of fact the nose is
only inherited up to the time of the change of teeth. For if
the ether body is so strong that it rejects the model of the
inherited nose, then in the course of the first seven years its
shape will change. If on the other hand the ether body is weak,
it will not be able to free itself from the model and at the
age of 10 the shape of the nose will still be the same. Looked
at from an external point of view it seems as though the
concept of heredity might still have the same significance in
the second 7 year period as it had in the first 7 years. In
such cases people are wont to say: “Truth must be
simple.” In reality things are very complicated. Concepts
formed today are mostly the result of a love of ease rather
than the urgent desire for truth. It is therefore of real
importance that we learn to look with understanding at this
body of formative forces, this etheric body, which gradually in
the course of the first 7 years creates the second physical
body, that in its turn also lasts for 7 years. The etheric body
is therefore a creator of form, a sculptor. And just as a true
sculptor requires no model, but works independently, while a
bad sculptor makes everything according to the model, so in the
first life period, and working towards the second period, the
ether body, or body of formative forces, fashions the second
physical body of the human being. Our present day
intellectuality enables us to acquire knowledge of the physical
body; it serves this purpose admirably, and anyone lacking
intellect cannot acquire such knowledge. But our university
studies can take us no further than this. For the ether body
cannot be comprehended by means of the intellect, but rather by
pictorial, intuitive perception. It would be immensely
important if the teacher could learn to understand the ether
body. You cannot say: We surely cannot expect all our teachers
to develop clairvoyance and so be able to describe the ether
body! — But let the teacher practise the art of sculpture
instead of studying the things which are so often studied in
University courses. Anyone who really works at sculpture and
enters into its formative nature will learn to experience the
inner structure of forms, and indeed of just those forms with
which the human body of formative forces is also working.
Anyone who has a healthy sense of form will experience
the plastic, sculptural element only in the animal and human
kingdoms, not in the plant kingdom. Just imagine a sculptor who
wanted to portray plants by means of sculpture! Out of sheer
anger one would feel like knocking him down! The plant consists
of the physical body and the ether body; with these it is
complete. The animal on the other hand envelops the ether body
with the astral body and this is still more the case with man.
This is why we can learn to comprehend the human etheric
body when, as sculptors, we work our way into the inner
structure of the forms of Nature. This, too, is why modelling
should take a foremost place in the curriculum of a training
college, for it provides the means whereby the teacher may
learn to understand the body of formative forces. The following
may well be taken as a fundamental principle: A teacher
who has never studied modelling really understands nothing
about the development of the child. An art of education based
on the knowledge of man must inevitably induce a sense of
apprehension because it draws attention to such things as these
and makes corresponding demands. But it can also induce
apprehension because it seems as though one must become
frightfully critical, rejecting everything that is common
practice.

Just as the ether body works at freeing itself in order to
become independent at the time of the change of teeth, so does
the astral body work in order to become independent at puberty.
The ether body is a sculptor, the astral body a musician. Its
structure is of the very essence of music. What proceeds from
the astral body of man and is projected into form is purely
musical in its nature. Anyone able to grasp this knows that in
order to understand the human being a further stage of training
must develop receptivity towards an inner musical conception of
the world. Those who are unmusical understand nothing whatever
about the formation of the astral body in man, for it is
fashioned out of music. If therefore we study old epochs of
culture which were still built up out of inner musical
intuition, if we enter into such oriental epochs of culture in
which even language was imbued with music, then we shall find a
musical conception of the world entering even into the forms of
architecture. Later on, in Greece, it became otherwise, and
now, especially in the West, it has become very different, for
we have entered an age when emphasis is laid on the mechanical
and mathematical. In the Goetheanum at Dornach an attempt was
made to go back again in this respect. Musicians have sensed
the music underlying the forms of the Goetheanum. But generally
speaking there is little understanding for such things
today.

It
is therefore necessary that we should gain in this way a
concrete understanding of the human being and reach the point
at which we are able to grasp the fact that man's physiological
and anatomical form is a musical creation in so far as it stems
from the astral body. Think how intimately a musical element is
connected with the processes of breathing and the circulation
of the blood. Man is a musical instrument in respect of his
breathing and blood circulation. And if you take the
relationship between the breathing and the circulation of
the blood: 18 breaths in a minute, 72 pulse beats in a minute,
you get a ratio of 4:1. Of course this varies individually in
many ways, but by and large you find that man has an inner
musical structure. The ratio 4:1 is the expression of something
which, in itself an inner rhythmical relationship, nevertheless
impinges on and affects the whole organisation in which man
lives and experiences his own being, In olden times the
scansion of verses was so regulated that the line was regulated
by the breath and the metrical foot by the circulation.

Dactyl, Dactyl, Caesura, Dactyl, Dactyl. Four in one, the line
expressive of the man.

But
what man expresses in language is expressed still earlier in
his form. Whoever understands the human being from a musical
aspect knows that sound, actual tones, are working within him.
At man's back, just where the shoulder blades meet and from
there are carried further into the whole human being, forming
and shaping him, are those human forms which are constituted
out of the prime or key-note. Then there is a correspondence in
the form of the upper arm with the second, and in the lower arm
with the third. And because there is a major and minor third
— not a major and minor second — we have one
bone in the upper arm, but two in the lower arm, the
radius and the ulna; and these correspond to the major and
minor third. We are formed according to the notes of the scale,
the musical intervals He hidden within us. And those who only
study man in an external way do not know that the human form is
constituted out of musical tones. Coming to the hand, we have
the fourth and fifth, and then, in the experience of free
movement, we go right out of ourselves; then, as it were, we
take hold of outer Nature. This is the reason for the
particular feeling we have with the sixth and seventh, a
feeling enhanced by experiencing the movements of eurythmy. You
must bear in mind that the use of the third made its appearance
comparatively late in the development of music. The experience
of the third is an inward one; with the third man comes into an
inner relationship with himself, whereas at the time when man
lived in the seventh he experienced most fully the going
outwards into the world beyond himself. The experience of
giving oneself up to the outer world lives especially strongly
in the seventh.

And
just as man experiences the inherent nature of music, so the
forms of his body are shaped out of music itself. Therefore if
the teacher wishes to be a good music teacher he will make a
point of taking singing with the children from the very
beginning of their school life. This must be done; he
must understand as an actual fact that singing induces
emancipation; for the astral body has previously sung and has
brought forth the forms of the human body. Between the change
of teeth and puberty, the astral body frees itself, becomes
emancipated. And out of the very essence of music emerges that
which forms man and makes him an independent being. No wonder
then that the music teacher who understands these things, who
knows that man is permeated through and through with music,
will quite naturally allow this knowledge to enrich the singing
lesson and his teaching of instrumental music. This is why we
try not only to introduce singing as early as possible into the
education of the child, but also to let those children with
sufficient aptitude learn to play a musical instrument, so that
they have the possibility of actually learning to grasp and
enter into the musical element which lives in their human form,
as it emancipates and frees itself.

But
all these things will be approached in the right way if only
the teacher has the right feeling and attitude towards them. It
is important to understand clearly that every training college
should in fact be so constituted that its curriculum should run
parallel with medical studies at a university. The first
approach should lead to the intellectual understanding which
can be gained from a study of the corpse; this should lead
further to an artistic understanding of form, and it can only
be acquired when, side by side with the study of physical
anatomy, the student practises modelling. This again should
lead to a musical understanding. For a true knowledge of man is
not attained unless there is added to the earlier medical
studies a comprehension of the part music plays in the world.
During his college training the student teacher should acquire
an understanding of music, not in a purely external way, but
inwardly, so that he is able by means of this inner perception
to see music everywhere. Music is truly everywhere in the
world; one only has to find it. If however we wish to obtain an
understanding of the ego-organisation it is essential to master
and make one's own the inner nature and structure of some
language.

So
you see, we understand the physical body with the intellect,
the etheric body through an understanding of form, the astral
body through an understanding of music; while the ego, on the
other hand, can only be grasped by means of a deep and
penetrating understanding of language. It is just here,
however, that we are particularly badly off today, for there is
a great deal we do not know. Let us take an example from the
German language. In German something is described that rests
quietly on our body, is round and has eyes and nose in front.
It is called in German Kopf, in Italian
testa. We take a dictionary and find that the
translation of Kopf is testa. But that is
purely external and superficial. It is not even true. The
following is true. Out of a feeling for the vowels and
consonants contained in the word Kopf, for
instance, I experience the o quite definitely as a form
which I could draw: it is, as eurythmists know, the rounded
form which in front is developed into nose and mouth. We find
in this combination of sounds, if we will only let ourselves
experience it, everything that is given in the form of the
head. So, if we wish to express this form, we make use of
larynx and lungs and pronounce the sounds approximating
to K-o-pf. But now we can say: In the head there is something
which enables one person to speak to another. There is a means
of communication. We can impart to another person the content
of something which we wish to make known — a will or
testament for instance. — If you want to describe the
head, not in relation to its round form, but as that which
imparts information, which defines clearly what one wishes to
communicate, then language out of its own nature gives
you the means of doing so. Then you say testa. You give
a name to that which imparts something when you say
testa; you give a name to the rounded form when you say
Kopf. If the Italian wanted to describe
roundness, he too would say Kopf; and likewise,
if the German wanted to express communication, he would say
testa. But both the Italian and the German have
become accustomed to expressing in language something
different, for it is not possible to express totally different
things in a single word. Therefore we do not say exactly the
same thing when we speak the word testa or
Kopf. The languages are different because their
words express different things.

Now
let us try to enter into the way in which a member of a
particular nation lives with the language of his folk-soul. The
German way of living in his language is a way of plastic
formation. German language is really the language of sculptural
contemplation. That has come about in German because in the
whole evolution of speech German is a further continuation of
the Greek element up into Central Europe. If you study Italian
and the Romance languages in general you find the whole
configuration is such that they are developed out of the motor
function of the soul. They are not contemplative. Italian has
formed itself out of an internal dancing, an internal singing,
out of the soul's participation in the whole organism of the
body. From this we see how the ego stands within the substance
of the Folk-Soul; through making a study of the inner
connections, the inner make-up of language, we learn to know
how the ego works.

This is why it is necessary for the teacher to acquire not only
a feeling for music, but an inner feeling for language —
taking as a starting point the fact that in the more modern
languages we have only retained soul experiences, experiences
of feeling, in the interjections. For instance, when in German
we say “etsch!” — it is as though someone had
slipped and fallen and we want to express this, together with
the amusement it has caused. In the interjections we still have
something in language which is felt. In other respects language
has become abstract, it hovers above things, no longer lives in
them. It must, however, again become living and real. We must
learn to wrestle with language, we must feel our ego going
right through the sounds. Then we shall feel that it is
something different whether we say Kopf and thereby have
the feeling that we should like to draw the form of the head
straight away, or whether we say testa and immediately
have the feeling that we want to dance. It is just this feeling
one's way into the activities of life which must be developed
quite specially in the teacher.

If
therefore the teacher can accustom himself to regarding the
physical and the soul-spiritual together — for they are
indeed one, as I have repeatedly impressed upon you — and
if he succeeds in doing this ever more and more, he will not be
tempted to enter into abstractions and intellectualities, but
he will have the will to keep his teaching and educational
practice between the change of teeth and puberty within the
sphere of the pictorial. There is nothing more distasteful,
when one is accustomed to think pictorially about real things,
than to have someone coming and talking intellectually in a
roundabout way. This is a frightfully unpleasant experience.
For example, one is accustomed to seeing something in life as
it actually takes place, one only has the wish to describe it
as it is, one is living completely in the picture of it; then
somebody comes along with whom one would like to come to an
understanding, but he forms his judgment purely on the basis of
intellect and immediately begins with: It was beautiful,
or ugly, or magnificent or wonderful — all these things
are one or the other — and one feels in one's soul as if
one's hair were being torn out by the roots. It is especially
bad when one would really like to know what the other man has
experienced and he simply does not describe it. For instance, I
may have made the acquaintance of someone who raises his knee
very high when he walks — but this man starts immediately
with: “He walks well” or “he has a good
carriage.” But in saying this he tells us nothing about
the other man, only about his own ego. But we do not want to
know this; we want an objective description. Today people find
this very difficult. Hence they do not describe the things, but
the effect the things make upon them, as
“beautiful” or “ugly.” This gradually
enters even into the formation of language. Instead of
describing the physiognomy of a face, one says: “He
looked awful” — or something of the kind.

These are things which should enter into the deepest part of a
teachers' training, to get rid of oneself and to come to grips
with reality. If one succeeds in doing this, one will also be
able to establish a relationship with the child. The child
feels just as I described, that his hair is being pulled out by
the roots if the teacher does not get to the point, but speaks
about his own feelings; whereas, if he will only keep to what
is concrete and real and describe this, the child will enter
into it all immediately. It is therefore of great
importance for the teacher that he does not overdo — his
thinking. I always feel it to be a great difficulty with the
teachers of the Waldorf School if they think too much, whereas
it gives me real satisfaction when they develop the faculty of
observing even the smallest things, and so discovering their
special characteristics. If someone were to say to me:
“This morning I saw a lady who was wearing a violet
dress; it was cut in such and such a fashion and her shoes had
high heels” and so on — I should like it better
than if someone were to come and say: Man consists of physical
body, etheric body, astral body and ego, — for the one
proves that he stands firmly in life, that he has developed his
etheric body, the other that he knows with his intellect that
there is an etheric body etc. But this does not amount to
much.

I
must express myself drastically in this way so that we learn to
recognise what is of the greatest importance in the teacher's
training; not that he learns to spin out his thoughts about
many things, but that he learns to observe life. That he is
then able to make use of such observation in life is something
that goes without saying. Everything is ruined, however, if he
racks his brains over how he should make use of it. This is why
anyone who wishes to describe something arising out of
Spiritual Science should make very strong efforts to avoid
using ordinary abstract concepts, for by so doing he gets right
away from what he really wants to say. And especially it is the
case that the impression made on anyone who tries to grasp
things in a characteristic way will be such that he learns to
describe things in the round, not with sharp edges. Here is a
drastic example. To me it is unpleasant to say in certain
circumstances: “There stands a pale man.” That
hurts. On the other hand the sentence begins to breathe and
have reality if I say: There stands a man who is pale, —
in other words, if I do not give a description in stiff,
ordinary concepts, but characterise with ideas that enclose it.
And one will find that children have much more inner
understanding for things when they are expressed in relative
form, than they have for bare nouns qualified by adjectives.
Children prefer a gentle way of handling things. When I say to
them: “There stands a pale man” — it is just
as if I was hitting at something with a hammer; but if I say:
“There stands a man who is pale” — it is like
a stroking movement of my hand. Children find it much more
possible to adapt themselves to the world if things are
presented in this second form rather than by hitting at them. A
certain fineness of feeling must be developed in order to make
oneself a sculptor in the use of language in order to put it to
the service of the art of education. It also lies in the sphere
of education as an art if one strives to gain a sufficient
mastery of language to enable one to articulate clearly in the
classroom and to know when teaching how to emphasise what is
important and to pass lightly over the unimportant.

We
lay great value on just these kind of things, and again and
again in the teachers' conferences attention is drawn to the
imponderable in teaching. For if one really studies a class,
one notices all sorts of things which can be of immense help.
For instance, suppose one has a class of 28 boys and girls and
one wants to give these children something which they can make
their own, something which will enrich their inner life. It may
perhaps be a little poem, or even a great poem. You try to
teach this poem to the class. Now you will observe the
following: If you let them all recite in chorus, or even
a third or half of the class, each child will speak and be able
to say it; but if you then test one or other of the pupils in
order to see if he can say it alone you will find that he
cannot. It is not that you have overlooked him and failed to
see that he was silent, for he can speak it perfectly well in
chorus with the others. The fact is that a group spirit
pervades and activates the class and one can make use of this.
So if one really works with the whole class, regarding the
children as a chorus, it seems at first that this calls up in
them a quicker power of comprehension. One day, however, I had
to point out the shadow side of this procedure and so I will
now entrust you with a secret. It is this. There are also
shadow sides in the Waldorf School! Gradually one finds one's
way and discovers that handling the class as a chorus and
allowing the children to speak together goes quite well; but if
this is overdone, if one works only with the class, without
taking the individual child into account, the result will be
that in the end no child by himself will know anything.

We
must consider the shadow side of all those things and be clear
as to how far we can go, for instance, in handling the class as
a chorus and to what extent it is necessary to take the
individual child separately. Here theories do not help. To say
that it is good to treat the class as a chorus, or to maintain
that things should be done in this or the other way is never
any use, because in the complexities of life what can be done
in one way can also, given other conditions, be done in another
way. The worst that can happen in educational science —
which indeed is art rather than science — the worst that
can happen is that directions are given which have an abstract
character and are based on definitions. Educational
instructions should consist solely in this, that the teacher is
so guided that he enters with understanding into the
development of this or that human being, and by means of the
most convincing examples is led to a knowledge of man.

Method follows of itself when we proceed in this way. As an
example let us consider method in the teaching of history. To
want to teach history to a child before the 9th or 10th year is
a quite futile endeavour, for the course of history is a closed
book to the child before this age. It is only with the 9th or
10th year — you can observe this for yourselves —
that he begins to be interested in individual human beings. If
you portray Caesar, or Achilles, Hector, Agamemnon or
Alcibiades simply as personalities, allowing what belongs
to history to appear only as a background, if you paint the
whole picture in this way the child will show the greatest
interest in it. It will be evident that he is eager to know
more about this sort of thing. He will feel the urge to enter
further into the lives of these historical personalities
if you describe them in this way. Comprehensive pictures of
personalities complete in themselves; or comprehensive
pictures of how a meal-time looked in a particular
century, and in some other century; describe plastically,
pictorially, how people used to eat before forks were invented,
how they were accustomed to eat in Ancient Rome; describe
plastically, pictorially, how a Greek walked, conscious
of each step, aware of the form of his leg, feeling this form;
then describe how the people of the Old Testament, the Hebrew
people walked, having no feeling for form, but slouching
along, letting their arms loose; call up feelings for these
quite separate and distinct things which can be expressed in
pictures; this will give you the right approach to the teaching
of history between the 10th and 12th years.

At
this latter age we can take a further step and proceed to
historical relationships, for it is only now that the child
becomes able to understand such concepts as cause and effect.
Only now can history be presented as something that is
connected, that has cohesion. Everything that lives in history
must, however, be worked out in such a way as to show its
gradual development. We come to the concept of growth, of
becoming. Call up before you the following picture. We are now
living in the year 1924
[The date of the lectures.].
Charles the Great lived from 760 until 814, so if the year 800 be
taken as the approximate date, we find he lived 1120 years before
us. If we imagine ourselves now living in the world as a child
and growing up, we can reckon that in the course of a century we
can have: son or daughter, father or mother, grandfather and
perhaps even a great-grandfather, that is to say 3 or 4
generations following one after the other in the course of a
hundred years. We can show these 3 or 4 generations by
getting someone to stand up and represent the son or daughter.
The father or mother will stand behind, resting their hands on
the shoulders of the one in front; the grandfather will place
his hands on the shoulders of the father, and the
great-grandfather his hands on the shoulders of the
grandfather. If you imagine placing son, father and grandfather
one behind the other in this way, as people belonging to the
present age, and behind them the course of the generations in a
further ten centuries, you will get all told 11 times 3 or 4
generations, let us say 44 generations. If therefore you were
to place 44 people one behind the other, each with his hands on
the shoulders of the one in front the first can be a man of the
present day and the last can be Charles the Great. In this way
you can change the time relationships in history, which are so
difficult to realise, into relationships which are purely
spatial. You can picture it also in this way: Here you have one
man who is speaking to another; the latter turns round and
speaks to the one behind, who in turn does the same thing, and
so it goes on until you come right back to the time when Peter
spoke to Christ. In doing this you get the whole development of
the Christian Church in the conversation between the people
standing one behind the other. The whole apostolic succession
is placed visually before you.

It
really amounts to this. One should seize every opportunity of
making use of what is pictorial and tangible. This is all the
more necessary because in this way one learns to enter into
reality, thereby learning also to form everything in accordance
with what is real. It is actually quite arbitrary if I place 3
beans before the child, then add another 3 beans and yet
another 3 or maybe 4, and then proceed to teach addition: 3
plus 3 plus 4 equals 10. This is somewhat arbitrary. But it is
quite another thing if I have a small pile of beans and do not
know to begin with how many there are. This accords with the
reality of things in the world. Now I divide the pile. This the
child understands immediately. I give one part to one child,
another part to a second child and a third part to a third
child. So you see, I divide the pile, first showing the child
how many beans there are altogether. I begin with the sum and
proceed to the parts. I can let the child count the beans
because that is just a repetitive process, 1, 2, 3 and so on,
up to 12. But now I divide them into 4, into 4 more and still
another 4. If I begin with the sum and proceed to the addenda
the child will take it in quite easily. It is in accordance
with reality. The other way is abstract, one just puts things
together, one is intellectualistic. It is also more real if I
get the child to the point when he must answer the following
question: If I have 12 apples and somebody takes them,
goes away and only brings 7 back, how many has he lost? Here
one starts with the minuend and goes from the remainder to the
subtrahend; one does not subtract, but goes from the remainder,
that is to say, from what remains as the result of a living
process, to what has been taken away.

Thus one's efforts are not everywhere directed towards
abstractions, but find their outlet in reality; they are linked
with life, they strive after life. This reacts on the child and
makes him bright and lively, whereas for the most part the
teaching of arithmetic has a very deadening effect. The
children remain somewhat dead and apathetic, and the inevitable
result of this is the calculating machine. The very fact that
we have the calculating machine is a proof of how difficult it
is to make the teaching of arithmetic perceptually evident. We
must however not only do this, but we must learn to read from
life itself.